Post subject: Shredding in Paradise - Day One, Photos and Story - 2003

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:27 am

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Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2002 1:00 amPosts: 8354Location: Florida

ISLAMORADA INVITATIONAL KITEBOARDING COMPETITION

MARCH 28 - 30. 2003

Take an island in the sunny, warm Florida Keys, add miles of shallow, calm water, throw in a cadre of stoked hard core shredders from all over sprinkle liberally with rum, fasten your seatbelt and just add wind ...
cause things are GOING TO GO OFF!!!

Rum Runners Bar all decked out for primetime shredding and good times!

and a huge thanks to Brad and Malea Lange of Sevensports, 1(877) Yes-2-Fly, and to ALL the volunteers. Without your hard efforts it wouldn't be possible for the rest of us to have a blast at events like this. If I missed anyone please let me know. THANKS!!!

Brad Lange and his wife Malea at 2002 Kiteboard Masters

Francisco boosts one

More about the actual riding that happened on Sunday with all that wind in the next article. For starters lets go to Saturday, a day of "wind waiting." Wonder what a bunch of hard core shredders will get up to while waiting for some good blow stuff in outer Margaritaville???!

Well ... they could launch a new sport, Neil, Oliver, Kent and Co. are checking it out ...

Neil is even being interviewed about this new sport by Pietro who came all the way from Italy to do the announcing for the competition. Pietro travels all over announcing at PKRA kiteboarding competitions and decided to slide down to the Keys to join in the fun.

SO WHAT IS THIS NEW SPORT?

Pietro calls it the NEIL SPORT!

Whaa?

Yes, the Neil Sport and in its original form it was almost the Neil MEMORIAL Sport. Snap Shackling in and towing HIGH set this episode apart in many critical ways. More about Neil's incredible, near terminal ride at:

So what is it? You take a wave runner with a short ski tow rope, a kite boarder with a traction kite ...

You launch the kite ...

You start towing the rider up with the rider HANGING ON TO AND NOT CONNECTED TO THE SHORT SKI TOW ROPE ...

Amuse the spectators ...

Tow him up about 20 ft. or so ...

Get that kite up there ...

and ... he lets GO! The kite can really boost some lift at this point depending on how you handle it. What really counts ... at least at this event??? It's the "il fattore di scimmia" as Pietro would call it. Or for us English speakers the .... MONKEY FACTOR!!!

John Holzhall gives it a try with a slingshot foil. Zack take it easy on the gas as the slingshot slingshots John off the waverunner!

Can you get hurt doing this, YES, broken lines, getting wrapped and jerked, torn kites. Does it help to keep under 30 ft. above the water, sure does to try to reduce the impact when things go wrong. It helps to be FAR away from land, buoys, day marks, boats, etc. You have no idea how far you might glide. Not real safe is it when you think about it. Boys will be boys and wind waiting can be a desperate time for shred heads and wind junkies! As they say on Romper Room, "don't try this at home kids."

What else to do .... hmmmm?

You could make strange hand signals such as Toby here trying to communicate with some local Conchs ... Ah X-Shooter Boards, got it! http://www.x-shooter.com

You could hang your new GlobeRider Kite up for all to checkout. Greg Kuklinski, late of NEXT kites and an FKA AC is putting his hot new kite out for his new venture, Globeriderkites!
http://www.globeriderkites.com/

Wakeboarding over a canoe aka slider. Ryan Riccitelli of Kiteboarding Mag. styles WITH A HELMET!

Ryan slides again ...

Kent rigging up with John Holzall of Maui as spotter and Zack the riding wonder from the Florida Panhandle at the wheel. John is the author of one of the very few books on kiteboarding (3 different books out in English?) that was recently released titled "Kiteboarding's Simple Plan!", http://www.kiteboardcenter.com/

Kent Marinkovic has at it and glides over first try ever with a slider. Kent is the guy that brings Cabrinha and Bic gear to your door in North and South America through Adventure Sports, was one of the three guys to make it from Key West to Cuba with a kite and is also a former olympic windsurfer.

and Andre of Antigua, the winner of the competition, shows off fine sliding style ...

Zack and Ben, riders out of NW Florida, hang out wind waiting. You will see some nice shots of both of these good riders from Sunday's activities ...

So what else to do? You could go BAR cruising, that is sandbar cruising a time honored Islamorada tradition. That is by those that are able to remember having been there! It is a pair of bars that bracket the channel leading out from the south end of Holiday Isle into Hawks Channel. A little city pops up there full of stoked partiers most weekends as they stroll through the shallows from boat to boat.

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